Google Library Database Is Delayed

By EDWARD WYATT

Published: August 13, 2005

Google said yesterday that it would temporarily halt its program to make searchable, digital copies of the vast contents of three university libraries to give publishers and other copyright holders the chance to opt out of having their protected works copied.

But a publishing trade association called the opt-out offer inadequate, saying it did not address the main concern of its members: the belief that the entire program, the Google Print Library Project, is built on a foundation of purposeful copyright violation.

Google said it would go ahead with plans to digitize, and make searchable, works that are in the public domain, that is, those whose copyrights have expired. But in response to discussions with publishers, authors and others who hold copyrights, Google said it would wait until at least Nov. 1 before beginning to scan works that are still under copyright.

In the meantime, Google will allow publishers and others to tell it which of their works they do not want included in its searchable database of printed material.

Adam M. Smith, a senior product manager at Google, said in an interview that the opt-out policy was consistent with the way Google maintains its relationships with Web site owners, allowing them to say when they do not wish to be included in a searchable index.

''We believe this program is consistent with the principle of fair use, and it will allow authors to write more books, allow publishers to sell more books and to have a more robust publishing industry,'' Mr. Smith said.

But Patricia Schroeder, the former Colorado congresswoman who is president and chief executive of the Association of American Publishers, the trade group, said that while publishers were ''very happy'' with the suspension of copying, the program still set a damaging precedent that copyrighted works could be reproduced at will, as long as a copyright holder had not pre-emptively objected.

''That is really turning it on its head,'' Ms. Schroeder said. ''How is an author even supposed to know that his or her work is being copied?''

Ms. Schroeder said that the publishers were in favor of expanding access to the content that they publish. But some publishers have said they were concerned that Google might begin to sell advertising related to the results of searches of copyrighted material without sharing the revenues with the copyright owners.

The dispute stems from a deal, announced in December, that Google struck with libraries at three American universities -- Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan -- as well as with Oxford University and the New York Public Library.

The agreements with Oxford and the New York library allow Google to make copies of all of the works in those institutions that are no longer protected by copyright. Once the project is up and running, the company will allow users of its Google Print site (print.google.com) to search those works and display contents that match a search term.

The agreements with the three university libraries have proved more problematic. The libraries agreed to let Google copy their entire collections, of both public domain and copyrighted works, to allow searching. When a search request produces a result in a protected work, Google displays only a snippet of text, plus bibliographic information and, if the book is still in print, links to sites where it might be available for purchase.

Publishers have objected to the program, however, saying that even if only snippets of a protected work are displayed in the search results, Google has still violated the copyright by making a wholesale copy and keeping it on the company's computers.

In June, the publishers' association asked Google to suspend its project for six months while questions about the copyright issues were discussed. And in May, the Association of American University Presses sent Google a letter with 16 detailed questions about the program's parameters, and plans for storage and use of the copied materials.

Ms. Schroeder said that her association was preparing to propose potential changes to the program, but that Google rejected them after receiving a briefing on the plans. She declined to characterize further what changes the publishers were seeking, and Mr. Smith of Google declined to comment on discussions with the publishers, which he said were continuing.